Skull Chainsaw Carving

I carved this skull giving the “devil hand” in a piece of White Pine. My primary tool of destruction was a chainsaw with a dime tip. The dime tip allows me to get into a lot of places that I could not get into otherwise. Once I went as far as I could with the chainsaw, I moved on to a torch, Dremel and sandpaper.

This free-standing sculpture is 14” tall, 8” wide and 6” thick.

I finished this carving with 2 coats of spray urethane. This helps to seal the wood, and keep the torched areas from leaving soot on your hands. I like the natural look of the wood, so I didn’t use a more protective sealer such as spar urethane. If this carving was going to be placed directly in the sun, one coat of spar urethane 2 times a year will keep the carving looking great. As with all wood and wood furniture, a barrier should be placed between this carving and the ground.

My brother-in-law has influenced my chainsaw work from the beginning. He’s a straight out the 80’s, bad to the bone, biker. When I first begin carving, I made a lot of eagles and skulls. This made Rob (my brother-in-law) pretty happy, and since I was still a beginner back then, he got quite a few of my carvings for free. I’m again drawn to the “biker” style of carving. There is just so much that can be done :)

I definitely have a scary side, Tom :) There are lots of carvings that could constitute contemporary out there…this is probably not one of them. Some of the work in my shop might fit into that category, though.

Yep guys, a dime tip bar is just what it sounds like….a carving bar that tapers down to around the size of a dime. It runs a special chain- 1/4” pitch….also requires a 1/4” pitch sprocket. There are also quarter bars out there that will run 3/8” pitch chains :)

Thank you, Dug! I have lots of ideas and carvings that I make that I haven’t listed on the site…. I’m becoming great friends with the chainsaw again, so there will probably be a lot more variation in what I list now :)

Josh,from intricate detailed carving to imaginative chainsaw work,you have all the bases covered.I plan to try some carving work soon,and guys like yourself have set the bar pretty high.Thanks for posting.